In recent years, climate change concerns, federal/state initiatives, and other factors have driven a rapid rise in the installation of renewable energy generation (EG) systems (i.e., systems that generate energy using renewable resources such as solar, wind, hydropower, etc.) at residential and non-residential sites. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, in particular, have been very popular EG systems.
The majority of PV capacity is “grid-connected”—in other words, tied to the utility-maintained electrical grid. This allows site loads to be serviced from the grid at times when the PV system cannot generate sufficient energy due to lack of sunlight (e.g., at night), while enabling energy to be fed back into the grid at times when PV energy production exceeds site loads, thereby allowing the energy to be conveyed to others on the grid.
Energy consumption in a serving area varies over time and under different environmental conditions. Energy price varies at different times as well. It is desirable to predict the energy usage for each home or facility, and thus the total energy usage in a servicing area at a given time, such that better power grid planning can be made, home appliances and other electrical power consuming machines can be controlled to use power from grid or PV energy at appropriate time to reduce overall peak energy usage and energy cost, and PV energy production can be fed onto the grid at appropriate time.